Is it creepy that Facebook knows who I talked to on Friday night?

linkedin recently encouraged me to connect with the guy who took the photos at my wedding almost 11 years ago.

we have zero common connections and I haven’t spoken to him or had any email contact with him since the wedding

scared the shit out of me

Is it really so scary or hard to fathom?

You had your very accurate GPS turned on, so did the people who you were talking to. Some may have even checked in to the event.

Facebook knew down to the meter where you were. The algorithm may have made the assumption that you were at that event/place due to the length of time you and those who you were surrounded by and for how long you were. Then asked if you knew those people. It didn’t actually know. How could it? Just so happened that you spoke to some digitally savvy people or those who are on facebook that night.

It’s putting two and two together and then trying to be useful.

Facebook is learning about you all the time. Have a look at Facebook advertising, how does it know all of that about customer groups?

If the network is free, then you are the product. Just don’t take it so personally.

Is there any chance any of these people may have google’d or Facebook searched you post or during the event, and hence the ‘people you may know’ connection happens that way?

I’m with Myles. Simple GPS tracking.
I wouldn’t be worried about what Facebook knows about you. They just want to advertise to you.
I’d worry more about what the banks, government and telcos know about you…

Nick – is he still in your email or phone contacts? There’s your answer.

Tim – You’ve answered your own question.

It’s more the other celebs privacy (or more accurately publicity) permissions will drive who you see. It’s less likely they will have been presented your info.
Also, I’m not quite clear what privacy you perceive has been breached and by who. The idea of a “social network” is encapsulated in that name.

There is also the possibility that the other people suggested to you had looked up your name either on Facebook or elsewhere – that’s how I found out my ex (who I had zero connections with) was stalking me on every available social media.

See, I find this handy more than anything. Now, I’ll check my suggested friends after every networking event.

I recently went to a friend’s funeral, and the day after the funeral and wake, Facebook recommend that I connect with a lot of her other friends who, prior to that day, I had never met and Facebook had never recommended we may know one another before. The details of the funeral had been posted to her page by a relative, and I, like other friends, interacted with the post (liked it), which is how I assumed this had worked. But the location setting makes much more sense, as I also didn’t use my phone, except to text one person, the entire day. It absolutely creeped me out, but in a way, it was also lovely to be reminded to connect with her other friends.

If it’s just to suggest people you may have a connection with that’s one thing, but who else are they passing the information on to?

Dear Tim,

I have noticed that you are not brushing you teeth for exactly the same amount of time everyday. This morning it was 3:14 minutes, compared to and average of 3:26 minutes over the prior 14 days.

This has raised a concern, and we will therefore be increasing the level of monitoring we are doing of you.

Yours

Mark Zuckerberg

Is it just location targeting though? If you have Facebook Messenger installed you have given Facebook the ability to access your microphone at any time without your knowledge… So perhaps they matched the audio with the other phones and worked out that you were having a conversation. Not as likely, but possible.

Mark you’re a dolt and talking utter hogwash.

That permission is to enable you to have voice messaging. It doesn’t constantly listen, FFS.

I also noticed that after chatting to people on Tinder, they come up as suggested friends on my Facebook feed. No shared connections and have never been in their physical proximity.

I’ve noticed in the last few days that Facebook has also started including people in my ‘People you may know’ who I have zero connection with on FB or in real life but follow on Instagram – I know Instagram links with your FB friends but this is the first time I’ve seen it go the other way.

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/facebooks-year-tv/

This privacy feature also highlights where you live and work! FB knows everything! As soon as I was made aware of this default, I switched mine off. Location targeting………… this will better enable them to target you with messaging on your feed! Probably selling it as well!

You still haven’t friended me though, Tim!

I blame Skynet….the rise of the machines!!

Tim, we are concerned about the thought you are having at this second.

To eradicate it, please open Facebook and Like something that someone has posted.

Thanks

Mark Zukerberg

There are too many questions over access to personal information and whether they need it. Despite working in the audience data space, I can’t agree with all those – you ticked the box therefore you’re the product – responses. Fact is that it’s creepy and open to abuse.

Hi Tim, I agree with the points you’ve raised. It’s a concern. LinkedIn has also been compromised recently with an increasing number of Nigerian scambaiting requests referencing first connections. It doesn’t feel like progress.

This boils down to trust and ethics between an organisation and its publics. As consumers, we’re prepared to sign-up to a more personal relationship with an organisation on the understanding that we’ll get something we perceive to be at least as valuable from them in return. The organisation gets some more of our data whilst we get to feel physically or emotionally fulfilled in some way. In this instance ‘friend’ suggestions in return for GPS co-ordinates.

The common denominators are Trust and transparency. Trust is critical to this two-way relationship remaining healthy. If we believe an organisation has crossed some ethical line our relationship with it will erode. The public relations profession should fulfill the role of social conscience for organisations acting as ethical guardians upholding corporate values.

What’s really annoying is the Facebook drones acting as proxy spies to harvest data on the rest of us.

Thankfully its losing popularity, but old people still seem obsessed with it for some reason.

LinkedIn in 2010 sent me a list of “people you might know”. At first skim, I thought ‘ nup, nup and nup. Then I saw a name I kinda sorta vaguely thought I knew. Days later “WTF?” These were people I did a course with in 1994! Before google, before LinkedIn before FB!. To say I was freaked is an understatement. Back then we all wrote our names and addresses on an A4 piece of paper and it was photocopied 40 times and circulated back to us. So here was data from before gmail, before digital contact books, before everything. And somehow LinkedIn had a full list from digital prehistory. I quit LI then and there – not that you can ever leave unless you change IP, and even then I am doubtful. I have never FB/d. I have read they have ghost accounts for “hold outs” like me. Should I now sign on- they are ready to begin connecting my data as and when they like! I find it very intrusive and am alarmed at potential for misuse.

if it had said, ‘we’re suggesting these contacts based on your recent location, you can turn this off here if you would like’ would you be less creeped out?? I think I would? It all just seems so sneaky. If they were just up front around this kind of thing at least you’d see the benefit sooner.

Know your party location? Tick.
Know who you spoke to? Tick
Know when you left the party to go home? Tick
Know who you left with? Tick
Know whether you ended up at your place? Tick
Know what time they left your place? Tick

Ready for the changes to the privacy conditions that you will have to opt out of this information being shared?

And that is before you have written a single thing on Facebook…

I’m still confused as to why everyone is shitting themself.

This is the marketing wet dream of big data and geo-location you sell every day but when you experience it, you have a conniption.

It’s like the early days of DM when the letter was addressed to you personally from someone you’d never met. But now we’re in 2014 people!

Forgive me for asking what may be a silly question, but could it be that all of you had all told Facebook you were attending the Event? As in an actual Event page on Facebook.

Did anyone using a Nexus have Google alerts informing them of their journey time to home and to work and based on your search and locations it did seem to nail, useful info pretty well? It seems to have been pulled recently though as mine have ceased and I can no longer swipe to view the overall Google screen? I liked it.

If you don’t want people to know where you are, then tighten up your settings. Or of course leave your phone at home and be as free as a bird…? (Although once we all get chipped, then ‘they’ will know where we are always…)

I think it’s a little creepier that Linkedin can give me suggestions of the following people even though I have not allowed access to my contacts….

1. Individuals who I have no possible linkages through LInkedin but I have had emails from.
2. Can suggest I link with the spouse of a person I have had emails from who doesn’t even have a Linkedin profile and have no possible Linkedin association.

If the LinkedIn APP on iPhone isn’t scanning your Mail app for email addresses and names then the algorithm that Linkedin runs is the most pure piece of mathematical brilliance ever created.

LinkedIn once recommended for me to connect to my partner who had 0 connections of his own and worked in a completely different industry, he had set up an account long ago and never bothered to log in ever again. Neither of us have the apps on our phones either.

Adieu, Facebook!
ELLO, ELLO new alternative
….but WAIT! can’t even go there because they’ll sell us out eventually when IPO comes calling and they’re no longer in control

back to carrier pigeons and PHONE FREE ZONES, oh people
…..(and sheeple!)

Hit the self destruct button (DELETE ACCOUNT) on your FB account if you dare
…fully aware they’ll keep all your data anyway, then change the policy again and be allowed to have it forever

The sweep at these high flying events should be for our ubiquitous weapons of mass destruction: modern phones
The Wizard does not take one anywhere, these days, even inside the confines of the Emerald City…that’s anywhere where I want to be unseen and unheard and untracked. And that’s not do do dastardly covert ops instead; it’s just to have a life that’s not being documented, Facebook message listened to, hacked and attacked and stored to create my long tail history unaware etc

SM (comments) check your Linkedin setups as you’ve no doubt in the wormhole of account settings allowed them to trawl your email that is linked to your In, as it were

Cannes(d) Laughter (comments)
maybe one of the other 39 now works for Linkedin, they have armies of people. Don’t suppose you mentioned said course on your profile?

If you re going to claim that taxi fare and suit dry cleaning we want proof you were there…….

Feels a lot like this Tim…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgmJyTQ1FM

I think privacy as a core issue is driving a counter culture against the big players in social media… If they continue to the blatant disregard for people’s privacy, these networks will wake up with no one on them.

@Johncandywashere – your point echos well my comment earlier (#24)

Trust is critical to this two-way relationship between a consumer and brand (social media platform) remaining healthy. If we believe the organisation has crossed some ethical line our relationship with it will erode – perhaps irreversibly.

The public relations profession has the ability to step up and fulfill the role of social conscience for organisations acting as ethical guardians upholding corporate values. Challenging the senior managers of the brands they represent to do the right thing. If the brands lack transparency – i.e. in how they plan to collect or use personal data – PRs should reject the move saying ‘it doesn’t pass the smell test’.

Failure for brands to be ethical and transparent means they run the risk of punters voting with their feet and, as you say: “these networks will wake up with no one on them.”

Just use these intentionally instead:

http://weave.in

http://but-n.com

http://about.me/intro

I agree – tracking is not creepy unless you do not know you are being tracked. But rather than rely on some hidden “big brother” to suggest connections why not actually use the social media to meet people face-to-face in the first place? Not to date them – like Tinder – but for social or business purposes. I like the new networking community called butN (but-n.com). It sets out to track you and potential contacts – using all kinds of ways to locate you accurately (but not too accurately I understand) – including your personal meeting schedule. It also allows you to ban contacts already made and turn the whole tracking facility off so you know you are traveling incognito.

A great system with loads of potential. I guess that is why according to some Tweets – LinkedIn are after buying butN in its infancy. Good move LinkedIN – you need this.

Interesting read Timbo – thanks for sharing champ.

I think we all know facebook are doing this but choose to ignore it! Scary!